Centrica Chief Executive Sam Laidlaw joined Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the announcement of an expanded youth jobs scheme.

Mr Brown has pledged a further 85,000 'opportunities' to help get young people into work. The opportunities include apprenticeships with companies such as Centrica, Carillion (which handles Centrica’s facilities management) and Royal Mail.

Centrica is one of about 150 companies supporting 'Backing Young Britain', a cross-Government campaign bringing together Government, public and private industry and the voluntary sector to provide more opportunities for young people to find work or training or gain work skills or experience.

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Mr Laidlaw said: "We are pleased to support the Backing Young Britain Campaign. Our programmes are all about investing in people, especially young people, and providing them with the skills to implement the technologies that will help our customers cut their energy bills and reduce their carbon footprint.

"Our business depends on highly trained people to give the best possible service and advice to our customers. Our apprenticeship programme and the creation of skilled jobs sit at the heart of our business' growth plans. We are proud to be creating 3,200 new jobs by 2012 and growing our apprentice numbers by 1000 over the next 18 months."

The campaign will see £1 billion invested in the hope of creating 100,000 new jobs for young people plus a further 50,000 jobs in 'unemployment hotspots'. The latest figures show that about 935,000 young people in England are not in employment or training.

(CD/KMcA)